Here For A Long, Long Time
by Manchester
Summary: With Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the professor and…


"MORE BLOOD, BUFFY, DAWN!" yelled Willow, "MORE!"

From where she was already squeezing yet another droplet of her blood from a pricked fingertip onto the top of the large wooden crate in the middle of the mystical circle, Dawn Summers rolled her eyes with exasperation. She opened her mouth to make some kind of crack about how Wils seemed to be channeling the time back in Sunnydale when this witch's double from another dimension had dropped in on the Scooby Gang, only for the high school students to find out their lookalike friend had unfortunately been turned into a vampire at that other Hellmouth's reality.

Buffy Summers' fiercest glare at her younger sister, sent over from the other side of the crate where this blond woman was also standing, instead made Dawn swallow whatever she'd been about to say. Glowering back, Dawn grumpily dripped one more bead of her blood, which joined the growing scarlet stain her older sibling was also contributing too on the crate. Determinedly shaking her own pierced fingertip, Buffy then shot an anxious glance to her right, where Willow was floating a foot above the stone floor of one of the spare rooms for the New Council's Scottish castle where this ceremony was taking place today.

Her hair glowing pure white, Willow's eyes opened to show orbs of an equal brilliant colorless energy. Using every bit of her magic, this witch now impressively intoned, "Blood calls to blood, kin calls to kin, equal mass calls to equal mass! Let my will be done! Bring her to me, send my gift to them!"

In an immense flare of light, the entire wooden crate disappeared from the room, to then be replaced by…a very shocked young woman with her dark hair done in pigtails and wearing a gingham dress. Staring around at her unfamiliar and completely different surroundings with dazed astonishment, this newcomer was then further disconcerted by being grabbed in a firm embrace by another female who was both a few years older than her and yet a complete stranger.

"Aunt Mary!" happily exclaimed Buffy continuing to hug this named lady with due care for Slayer strength. "It took a while, but we finally got you off that stupid island with its stretched-out time!"

The embraced woman just managed a baffled "Huh?" while she stared over the shoulder of whoever was hugging her at where another girl was sucking upon a fingertip and giving a casual, friendly wave their way at the same time. Still one more woman with red hair now stepped forward to stay at the side of this greeter, and this also unknown person smiled at Mary Ann and the other stranger who'd finally let go of her.

"Oh, right," a cheerful Buffy nodded. She indicated herself, "I'm your niece Buffy, and so's Dawn over there." A pointing finger now without a single wound indicated the girl who'd at last taken her own finger out of her mouth to amiably shrug at Mary Ann in response to being introduced.

Buffy next indicated the redhead. "That's Willow, who did the major mojo to free you from the curse which was keeping you and the other guys stuck on the place where you landed after that three hour tour."

Finally hearing something she could understand, Mary Ann looked around in her sudden worry. She anxiously asked the other three people there, who were the only ones besides her in the room, "Where are they? Gilligan, the Skipper, Ginger-"

Breaking in before Mary Ann could finish saying the names of those who'd been stranded with her, the woman called Willow was sadly shaking her head. This was followed by a regretful, "The only one I could rescue was you from that pocket dimension. The curse is just too strong for me to bring all of them back. I found a loophole, though, using your blood relationship with Buffy and Dawn which set up a link through my magic to set you free. Another thing I could pull off was to exchange a bunch of stuff weighing as much as you do in its own crate. There's a few handy presents in there like a collapsible boat and a radio to call for help when they get far enough from that island's influence. Also, because I put some more spells on that gear, it'll be absolutely immune from the curse plus that walking jinx with the sailor cap. Trust me, they've now got a better chance of being saved than all the remaining six people have had for years."

Bewilderedly listening to that truly weird explanation, Mary Ann again seized on the first thing she'd actually understood. Looking uncertainly at the other two women gazing back at her, Mary Ann protested, "Related? But I've never met either of you before!"

The girl apparently called Dawn now said with a rather odd grimace accompanying this sent sideways in the direction of her sister, "Oh, sure we are, courtesy of our deadbeat dad Hank Summers."

Now feeling at a total loss, Mary Ann managed, "Little _Hankie?!_ But he was just eight years old the summer my cousin visited when I won the state fair title!"

This time it was now both Buffy and Dawn who teamed up together to give a shared, comforting hug to their numb target. In the middle of their consolation, Buffy explained to her great-uncle's child, "Like I said, it's sure been a while, Aunt Mary. Don't worry, I promise we'll make things clearer. Right now, let's get out of here and find somewhere more nicer to talk, okay?"

Giving an accepting sigh, Mary Ann Summers allowed herself to be led out of the room into a new life far, far away from an island paradise which could better be described as a beautiful but implacable prison. That is, until family got involved and set out to free one of their own by any means necessary…

* * *

Well after dinner that night in the castle's main cafeteria, Willow, Dawn, and Buffy huddled together at the center of their otherwise deserted table, glumly watching in unison the enormous crowd clustered around at the left end of this piece of furniture. There, every unmarried male presently in the building consisting of the Watchers (both veterans and trainees), the geek squad from Research Division, and the entire castle staff were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their unwavering attention directed at someone concealed in the center of their group.

The only indication that Mary Ann Summers was indeed seated over there was the delighted feminine laughter drifting their way, causing the trio of young women to wince with shared guilt.

Not daring to peek for herself, Willow mumbled under her breath, "Are they still glaring at us?"

Dawn cautiously turned her head a fraction to glance upwards at the other end of the table. An instant later, she snapped back her neck so quickly Dawn almost got whiplash. Slumping down in her chair, the Key then dolefully said, "Yep, and right now I'm really grateful Giles made it stick, the rule that people can't bring their personal weapons to the table. From all the poisonous looks we're getting from the Slayers and the rest of the gals there, whose boyfriends just left them tonight, it's a miracle we aren't dodging thrown cutlery this minute!"

Buffy gave a half-hearted shrug, before musing out loud, "It's kinda like the anti-Cordelia effect, no less. I mean, despite Cordy's beauty, she was always ready to cut down with mega-nastiness any jerk who tried hitting on her. But Aunt Mary, she's so…so…wholesome, pretty, and nice! This means every possible guy who meets her thinks he's got an actual chance, and that was meant in a good way!"

"Can't help agreeing with you, Buffy," uttered Willow in her hollowest tone. "Nothing else can explain why I just saw _Andrew_ over there!"

Dawn then summed up everyone's befuddled feelings with, "Okay, without meaning to, we just unleashed upon the world the supreme Girl Next Door trope. What are we going to do now?"

* * *

A couple of days later…

"Hey, Dawnie!"

"Xander! I didn't know you were back yet!"

"Yeah, just flew in from our little demon problem in Amsterdam. Things worked out pretty well there. Say, is this your…aunt…?"

Xander Harris trailed off in his easygoing question, a now familiar glaze appearing in his remaining eye while he gaped at where Mary Ann Summers was giving him a welcoming smile.

Wearily sighing, Dawn reached for the small object at her hip dangling from its belt holster, pulled it out, and aimed it right at Xander's face. Then, she squeezed the trigger.

"_ACK!_" yelped Xander, his head jerking back. He next frantically pawed with one hand at where liquid was dripping down his face. Now glaring at where Dawn was smugly returning her plant sprayer to its previous position, Xander snarled, "Ice water? What the hell are you doing-!"

"It got your attention, didn't it, Xan?" retorted Dawn. She waved a hand at a rueful-looking Mary Ann where they were all standing in the Scottish castle corridor. "Sorry, but Aunt Mary has a tendency to catch off guard like that people who meet her for the first time. It was either wait a couple minutes for you to collect your marbles, or provide some shock therapy."

"Let me guess," Xander grumbled while wiping the last few drops of water off his chin, "Buffy kicks people on their shins when _she's_ around?"

Both Dawn and Mary Ann gave near-identical giggles at hearing this. The older woman then admitted, "Yes, even though I told her to stop doing that! I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Harris. Call me Mary Ann." With those final words, she held out her hand.

Starting to put forward his own slightly-damp palm, Xander paused for a moment to do a quick drying rub of this on a pants leg, and then he shook hands with Mary Ann. The man with an eyepatch then amiably said, "Cool, but just call me Xander, all right? Giles told me about how you wound up here when I was away, Mary Ann. How's the New Council been treating you?"

A very sad expression appeared on Mary Ann's pretty face after that last question. She shrugged, "Just fine, Xander, which I'm glad for, honest. However, it was a really big jolt when I found out I was fifty years in the future, and also my friends from the island were mostly gone now."

Looking sympathetic, Xander nevertheless couldn't help stating, "I haven't heard about that."

"It was just this morning," Mary Ann sorrowfully informed both him and Dawn, nodding in her direction. This Summers niece also listened with fascination to her aunt further explain. "The…teleconference?…with Ginger in Los Angeles had her tell me that they managed to get away from the island in the boat Willow provided. They didn't even need to radio for help, since the boat appeared a few miles off the mainland and they were picked up at once by a passing ship. The other ladies came off first, then Mr. Howell. When the Skipper was arguing with Professor Hinkley on who'd leave last, Gilligan somehow capsized the boat and it sank like a stone."

Taking a necessary breath, Mary Ann continued to her very attentive audience. "After the guys got pulled from the ocean, Mr. Howell collared them all in privacy along with Ginger and his wife because he'd learned the date. It was only a day after the local freak storm that wrecked the Minnow, even though they all remembered spending years on the island! Not wanting to be questioned about this and other things they couldn't explain, like me vanishing with a note and a wooden crate left in my place, everyone agreed to keep quiet about it all. Nobody really liked it, but it was either that or risk an official investigation which might send them to jail or a loony bin. So, Mr. Howell came up with a story of the Minnow going down in the storm with me missing in the confusion when the lifeboat was used."

"Well, that's kinda harsh, but also practical," Xander said thoughtfully. "We - us Scoobies in Sunnydale and the New Council now - have a history of making up cover stories on the fly when we simply can't tell the truth about magic and more stuff like that because nobody will ever believe it."

Shooting a look of wry agreement Xander's way, Dawn in turn mused, "That matches what I heard growing up about Aunt Mary, being lost at sea. I never learned anything more, though."

Still holding Dawn's gaze, Xander lifted an eyebrow in a silent inquiry of whether she'd yet told her aunt about the whole bunch of mystical weirdness having to do with Joyce Summers' youngest daughter being the Key and not actually in human form until she'd appeared as a junior high student in Sunnydale. From the far side of her face out of Mary Ann's sight, Dawn just quirked upward the corner of her mouth in an equally wordless message of 'Later.' Satisfied, the pair of Hellmouth survivors returned to Mary Ann's story of how reality had rearranged itself.

"Ginger said after they returned to Los Angeles and the fuss died down, the group mainly split up. Mr. and Mrs. Howell set up lifetime annuities for everybody else as thanks for helping them survive on the island. They went off to take up their own lives again with only the occasional Christmas card sent to the others, and passed away twenty years ago. Ginger went back to show business and from what she mentioned, had steady work for a long time in films and television, plus getting married and divorced once or twice. She still keeps busy with community theater. Captain Jonas and Gilligan both moved as far inland as they could, to Kansas, but they stayed together to run a successful seafood restaurant there. The Skipper died around the same time as the Howells, and Gilligan teamed up with Professor Hinkley to help market his inventions on late night cable. Both of them got rich in doing this and had a lot of fun for the rest of their lives, which lasted until the last decade when Gilligan went first and the Professor died only a few weeks ago."

"Oh, sorry," compassionately chorused the listening pair of Xander and Dawn.

Mary Ann smiled in evident thanks, to then hear from Xander trying to cheer her up further, "So, what are your plans now? Since you're family, I'm sure Buffy and Dawn would be more than glad to have you stay here as long as you want." Dawn firmly nodded in agreement to that.

"Yes, well, I'm thinking about it," admitted Mary Ann. She went on, "One good thing is that Ginger told me how to claim the annuity Mr. Howell set up for me if I ever managed to show up again. I was also mentioned in Gilligan's will, so all in all, I don't have to worry about working for a living. But I do want to stay busy, and Mr. Giles was kind enough to offer me the chance to join the New Council. I'm going to talk to him again today on just how I can help out."

Giving a sudden hug to a startled Dawn and another friendly handshake to Xander, Mary Ann now announced, "Thanks for listening, guys. See you at dinner!" With that, this woman recently rescued from a cursed island nodded goodbye to the duo as she left them to walk away down the castle corridor.

Staring after her aunt until she vanished around the hallway corner, Dawn also noticed how Xander's intent gaze was firmly fixed upon this departing woman's pert behind. Dawn's hand discreetly moved to her hip, where the girl's fingers curled around the plant sprayer trigger-

"Knock it off," Xander growled, who'd still noticed every bit of this byplay. He glanced over at where Dawn was smirking at him. "Even though I thought Buffy was laying it on pretty thick, your aunt's outstanding sweet personality just took me by surprise, okay? Speaking of big sis, where's the Buffster anyway?"

Dawn disgustedly lifted her eyes upwards to the ceiling. Still glowering at the overhead light, Dawn snorted, "In Spain, tracking down our failed parental unit. Depending on how things go, she'll tell Dad about his returned cousin or just give him a piece of her mind and come back to let Aunt Mary decide for herself whether or not Hank should know about how she's here in Scotland and looking like she hasn't changed at all since the early sixties."

"My bet's on the last," cynically said Xander. He brightened up a little to mention, "I really like her, you know? She seems to be dealing pretty well with everything. Has the G-man given any clue as to what he might come up with, having Mary Ann work for the Council?"

Now beginning to stroll in step with Xander down the corridor, Dawn shrugged. "Nothing yet, but after we found out last night that she can also effortlessly charm any demon into blithering idiocy, Giles went off muttering something about putting her on the New Council's negotiating team with the neutral clans."

"'Blithering idiocy?'" Xander repeated in his best mock-serious tone. "Dawnie, you've been in the land of tweed far too long. You need to get back to the States as fast as possible, eat an apple pie there, go to a ball game, salute the flag, and tell the nearest politician they're a lying, cheating, money-grubbing bastard."

Happily falling into the enjoyable banter with Xander which she'd missed so much, Dawn said with a perfect deadpan, "Can't for now, Xan. Got a really important job to finish first. Did you know _Andrew_ here is hanging around Aunt Mary a little too often? Now, fine, us Summers girls can sleep with vamps, jerks, and other male morons of all types and species, but it's going much too far when there's the slightest suspicion of becoming kinfolk with the supreme geek of all time! It must be stopped!"

"I'm in, Dawnstar!" pompously declared Xander as they also turned around the hallway corner. Drifting through the corridor air was a final comment before he and Dawn moved out of earshot. "I suppose actual maiming is out of the question, but there's lots of things you can do with the proper chemicals. It's not like Andrew really needs to keep his hair or his normal skin color…"

* * *

Author's Note: That _is_ indeed Mary Ann's full name on the show, as given by Wikipedia, which lead to this little bit of crackfic. Also, the actor Dean Butler who played Buffy's (and possibly Dawn's, as it can be argued) father, was born in 1956, which of course makes him eight years old when _Gilligan's Island_ began its run in 1964.

Fondly dedicated to Russell Johnson, the Professor, who passed away on January 14, 2014.


End file.
